DC Procurement – Category Manager

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Microsoft Cloud Operations and Innovation (CO&I) is the team behind the cloud. Within CO&I, the Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) team is responsible for delivering core datacenter infrastructure for Microsoft’s cloud business. The MS portfolio consists of complex, multi-disciplinary, large scale, multi-year datacenter construction and lease projects. We are looking for a passionate, high-energy individual to help build the cloud datacenters that power the world’s largest online services. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

 

The Procurement Strategic Category Manager maintains and executes on multi-year sourcing strategy for complex, projects and/or purchasing opportunities. Integrates business specifications for complex purchasing areas into request for information and/or request for proposal processes. Leads contract negotiations for one or more purchasing categories cross-functionally and ensures that price, capacity, and strategic business needs are met. Applies an understanding of procurement policies. Ensures adherence to policy, educates stakeholders and suppliers on policy compliance, and drives the remediation and resolution of sourcing issues. Collaborates with senior Procurement stakeholders to ensure awareness of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and/or defined milestones and deliverables, and to drive timeliness and consistency across supply chain requests. Identifies issues related to procurement requests and collaborates with business and engineering partners. Creates contract execution plans, defining control processes and approaches. Develops and leads pricing and negotiation strategies for several complex purchasing categories and gains C-suite support for strategies both internally and externally. Drives early business engagements for highly complex business areas or purchasing categories. Manages supplier activity and progress across multiple accounts and complex purchasing categories, developing and executing supplier account plans detailing mutual priorities and focus for the supplier relationship for the upcoming period.

 

Collaborates with senior Procurement stakeholders to ensure awareness of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and/or defined milestones and deliverables, and to drive timeliness, accuracy, quality, and consistency across supply chain requests. Serves as subject matter expert on the SLA, milestones, and/or deliverables, and manages any escalations related to policy non-compliance. Leverages data to anticipate and mitigate risk and negative business impacts by ensuring compliance with agreed-upon terms, communicating delay potential to stakeholders, and driving the execution of contingency plans cross-functionally and/or cross-regionally as needed.

Applies an end-to-end understanding of procurement processes and policies, and the tradeoffs between Microsoft and key suppliers to drive business impact by applying market intelligence to define, develop, and influence the adoption of channel strategies cross-functionally and/or cross-regionally that enable scalable execution with consistency, accuracy, quality, and timeliness of delivery. Leads decision making around the execution and evolution of various workstream processes, identifies and seeks solutions to compliance areas/gaps, and influences leadership to drive change internally and/or externally.

Ensures adherence to policy, educates stakeholders and suppliers on policy compliance, and drives the remediation and resolution of sourcing issues. Influences current and future policy direction as needed to mitigate risks across business units and enable suppliers to meet business requirements.

 

Creates, maintains, and executes on multi-year sourcing strategy for several complex, projects and/or purchasing opportunities, optimizing costs, ensuring continuity of supply and/or services, and driving benchmarking and alignment across Microsoft. Works cross functionally with senior stakeholders and consults with other industry experts to inform strategy with a global view. Leverages end-to-end sourcing and procurement expertise and benchmark data to identify, revise, and influence the definition of business requirements, manage conflicting priorities and tradeoffs, and resolve escalations to execute on sourcing strategies and solutions.

Integrates business specifications and sourcing strategies for several complex purchasing areas into request for information (RFI) and/or request for proposal (RFP) processes, models operationally efficient supplier management practices, and is accountable for strategic oversight of multi-tier supplier selection. Manages, and improves upon supplier evaluation frameworks, identifies gaps or trends across supplier strategic business and performance reviews, and drives corrective actions. Partners with suppliers to drive innovation and improvement, transform operational capabilities, and proactively identify and manage risk. Evaluates procedural, operational, and/or environmental factors across categories, accounting for key stakeholder relationships and dependencies, analyzing root causes of issues, linking insights to improvement strategies, and influencing the adoption of needed improvements.

Leads contract and price negotiation activities for one or more purchasing categories cross-functionally and ensures that price, capacity, and strategic business needs are met, while also reflecting Microsoft’s cross-functional engagements with suppliers. Identifies systematic and long-term cost reduction opportunities and works across stakeholder teams to drive cost competitiveness.

 

Creates and delivers on contract execution plans, defining control processes and approaches that drive consistent alignment with business requirements and support continuous improvements in the execution of contracts within and across organizations. Serves as a primary point of contact for identifying and resolving internal and/or external contract delivery, execution risks, and road blocks. Monitors the impact of complex change orders to the underlying business case, and partners cross-functionally to adjust impact models.

Identifies issues related to procurement requests and collaborates with business and engineering partners to proactively drive process and system improvements. Engages the supply base to process price validation and deliver accurate pricing to relevant team(s) for purchase order creation. Oversees price and procurement requests via workflow process or technology as applicable in support of product and service requirements, ensuring procedural compliance, and managing the resolution of highly complex pricing issues raised by other sourcing personnel.

 

Drives early business engagements for highly complex and/or undefined business areas or purchasing categories with cross functional leadership including product design, quality, and business teams, to share best practices, influence decision-makers, drive action, and optimize sourcing strategies, business requirements, spend, and short- and long-term priorities. Facilitates industry and ecosystem engagements, and provides expert consultation with leadership teams on sourcing decisions and optimizations that can be deployed at scale.

Develops and leads pricing and negotiation strategies for several complex purchasing categories, ensures that strategies clearly articulate tradeoffs, roles, and responsibilities across parties, and gains C-suite support for strategies both internally and externally. Anticipates negotiation setbacks, proactively drives action to mitigate contract disagreements, and coaches others on negotiation best practices across internal sourcing teams.

Manages supplier activity and progress across multiple accounts and complex purchasing categories, developing and executing supplier account plans detailing mutual priorities and focus for the supplier relationship for the upcoming period. Trains external stakeholders during onboarding, and identifies engagement programs to improve supplier performance to achieve business goals.

 

Bachelor’s degree or Master’s degree in engineering, Computer Science, Supply Chain, Data Analytics, Business, Finance or related field AND 10+ years experience in Data Science/Analytics, Finance, Project Management, Supply Chain, and/or Operations or related field.

 

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